


A Good Older Sister

by anaraine



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/pseuds/anaraine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You'll be a good older sister, won't you?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Older Sister

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evandar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/gifts).



> I feel this is more of a "making-her-own-way" story than a "taking-no-shit" one, but Sigrid's still young. She'll get there.

Sigrid is a few months older than seven when her mother dies.

The midwife tries her best to keep her from the room, but when her mam starts screaming, Sigrid decides she's not going to listen to her. She gives Bain her rag doll and leaves him near the hearth, dragging the grate in front of the fire so Bain won't touch it by accident. Then she sneaks in through the door to her mam's birthing room, which is really just the room they all sleep in when it's cold.

Sigrid doesn't remember Bain's birth very well, even though her mam and da swear she snuck in to watch. But she's pretty sure it didn't look like this. There's so much blood that it puddles on the floor, and a squirmy baby is in the midwife's hands, bright red and squalling. Her mam is so pale, skin as white as the Master's when he puts that silly powder on his face.

Sigrid dashes to the bed, ignoring the midwife's shouting and the wet feeling that oozes around her toes. Her mam lifts her hand slightly, but it falls back to the bed before it raises more than a few inches.

"Sigrid," she says, instead, and her voice is weak and thready, so Sigrid leans in close to her mam's mouth to listen and takes one of her hands with both of hers.

"Mam?" she asks, and she can't help it if she sounds a little scared. She wants her da, but he's still on the barge. Mam wasn't supposed to give birth until Lótessë, but her water broke this morning and she made Sigrid run for the midwife before she had even gotten dressed properly.

"Oh, Sigrid," her mam sighs. "I love you. I love you so much. Be good to Tilda. She's the littlest, and she'll need help. You'll be a good older sister, won't you?"

"Of course I will, mam," she says, because she's heard this her entire life. 'Be a good older sister to Bain, Sigrid.' 'You're such a good older sister.' Sigrid doesn't have any plans on becoming a bad older sister.

"That's a good girl." Her mam smiles, but doesn't reach her eyes. "Tell Bain I love him. And your father. Tell him I love him. That I love Tilda. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes, mam."

"I love you, Sigrid," her mam says, and then the midwife tears Sigrid's hands away.

Sigrid screams.

She screams and kicks and bites, but her socks are wet and they slide against the floor. The midwife had put Tilda down in the cradle, so she doesn't need to be careful as she hauls Sigrid from the room and throws her at the table where they eat.

Sigrid hits her head hard against one of the table legs. It takes her a minute to get up again and run back towards the door. The midwife must have hauled one of their heavy wooden chairs in front of it, though, because it won't budge. She pounds against the door and screams for the midwife to let her in. Bain joins her after a moment, screaming because he can see her distress.

Sigrid knows they must be making a terrible racket, but the midwife doesn't let her in, and no one comes to their front door.

They scream themselves out, until they can't manage anything but hoarse little squeaks, and Sigrid collapses into a heap. Her socks are stiff and uncomfortable, and when she looks she realizes that her socks have left bloody smears all over the floor.

It makes her want to cry all over again, but she can't. She's all cried out, face wet and sticky from her tears. She picks up Bain as best she can and hobbles back towards the hearth where they curl together for warmth near the dying fire.

By the time their da comes home, their mam is dead.

**◊◊◊**

Sigrid never tells anyone, but she hates Tilda for a little bit. It's a rotten feeling that makes her blood race and her stomach churn, but she can't help it. She hates Tilda for killing their mam and for making their da into this grim, unsmiling man who is never home. She hates Tilda because Bain's stopped talking, and no matter what Sigrid does he won't even say her name.

She hates Tilda because there are strange women in her mam's house, moving things around and throwing things out and they won't listen to Sigrid because she's just a _child_. She hates Tilda because da tells Sigrid to leave it be, they need to be here to feed her sister, and if they don't Tilda will die.

Sigrid wants to say, "Let her, then." If her stupid baby sister is so weak and helpless that she can't survive missing a few meals, when Sigrid and Bain have missed so many since she's arrived, then Sigrid _wants_ her to die.

But she won't say it. Not when her mam told her to be a good older sister. And not when Tilda is the only thing that makes her da smile. It's a weak, sad smile, and it hurts her heart to see it because it's nothing like how he used to smile. But he smiles for Tilda, not for Bain and not for Sigrid.

So Sigrid bites her tongue until it bleeds.

She is a _good_ older sister. She feeds Bain when there is food in the house and lets him eat until he's finished, even when it means that she goes without. She plays with Tilda when the wet nurse of the day leaves her crying in the cradle, demanding attention in the only way she knows how.

(Selfishly, Sigrid keeps Bain away from their younger sister. She doesn't want to share him. Not when Bain is the only person who still loves _her_.)

Eventually, Sigrid figures out that the wet nurses don't like being here, and that they don't like Tilda either. But her da is paying them good money so that Tilda won't die, and as long as the money keeps coming they'll keep feeding her.

Sigrid thaws a little, when she overhears them. Nobody loves Tilda except for her da and he's almost never home.

It takes another few nights, but Sigrid eventually finds herself sitting next to Tilda's cradle. She takes a deep breath and says quietly, "I love you, Tilda."

Tilda smiles and waves a tiny fist before sticking it in her mouth.

After that, Sigrid brings Bain in when she entertains Tilda, telling them both stories and teaching Bain how to be careful with their little sister. And every time she tells Tilda that she loves her, it gets a little easier. She hates Tilda a little less.

It's not really Tilda's fault, Sigrid knows. She's just a baby, and babies can't do much of anything besides sleep, cry, and eat. She didn't kill their mam on purpose.

Her hatred slowly melts away, and Sigrid does her best to keep from holding on to it. It was a comfort at first, though a bitter one, but she's had her fill. She wants to smile and mean it. She wants to smile and laugh and be _happy_ again.

Tilda doesn't deserve to be hated just because she was born.

Sigrid lets go.

No one else ever knows.

**◊◊◊**

Sigrid is good with numbers.

At seven, she could count all the way up to five hundred and back again without making a mistake. At ten, she figures out how much her da is making, and how much he pays the wet nurse that still lives in their home.

It's too much.

Or her da is getting paid too little.

Sigrid wishes she was better at her reading and writing, so she could understand the papers her da brings home. Her mam had been teaching her, but counting stones were easier to get than ink and paper. They had gone out to the shores of the lake to practice writing with sticks in the mud, but those had been special trips. The Master didn't like his people leaving unless it was for work.

Books are even rarer in Laketown. The damp makes books grow mold and then they have to be thrown out. Her da owns a few books, which he showed her once when she started reading, but they remain packed away carefully to keep them from rotting. Sigrid doubts she could have learned from them, though - she remembers how old they were and how black soot stained their pages, making words illegible.

No, if she wants to get better at reading, good enough so that she can understand the stamped consignment papers her da brings home, she's going to need a teacher. Someone who can explain and correct her when she's wrong.

And those people are in very short supply. The Master knows how to read, of course, and so does his weedy little henchman Alfrid. Sigrid would rather claw her own eyes out than ask them. She'd like it if her da could teach her —her da can read and write because his da taught him as a boy; a legacy of their past, when her ancestors ruled Dale— but he's always so tired and worn when he comes home. Sigrid is loathe to put another job on his shoulders.

It does make her think, though. Surely there are others of Dale that did the same for their children. Surely they could teach her.

(Sigrid isn't stupid. She knows that Dale no longer exists, that her father and grandfather were born and raised in Laketown, and that if anything they were men of these waters. But Laketown itself sees them differently.

Her accent is strange and foreign compared to their neighbors. She speaks differently. It marks her as an outcast, just as it marks her siblings and her father. They are not _of Laketown_. They are of a ruined city, lost to the fires of a great dragon. Laketown took their ancestors in, but they remain forever apart. They remain forever of Dale.)

**◊◊◊**

Sigrid does not venture into the heart of Laketown very often. Tilda is only two while Bain is not yet seven, and she does not like leaving them alone. A wet nurse is there, yes —this one's name is Cala and her own son has been weaned, leaving her free to nurse Tilda— but Sigrid doesn't trust her. She doesn't trust anyone to help her siblings should they need it, since no one ever bothered helping her.

Unease always settles low in her belly when she leaves her siblings behind. But some things just have to be borne.

She kisses Tilda on the forehead and tells Bain to be good. Then she leaves in search of a man called Percy. He's somewhat of a friend to her father, having come to partake in supper at their house before. But more important to Sigrid is that he shares her accent.

Keeping to the shadows to avoid running into any of the Master's guards, Sigrid makes her way across the wooden walkways towards the western entrance. She has to back track a few times, unused to the less direct paths, but she does reach her destination within a reasonable amount of time.

There are no boats waiting for inspection beyond the closed gate. She can see Percy sitting on a stiff wooden chair, feet propped up on his desk with the chair balanced on two legs. He looks bored, which gives Sigrid that last bit of courage she needs to move.

She darts up the steps into the small gatehouse and moves behind the door to keep passers-by from seeing her. Then, with as firm a voice she can muster, she says hello.

Percy falls backwards out of his chair and knocks his head against the ground with a sickening crack.

Sigrid, frozen in horror, does nothing as he swears and stumbles back to his feet.

He pauses as he catches sight of her, though, and clearly tries to muster up a smile even though it looks more like a grimace. "Hullo, Sigrid."

"I'm so sorry," Sigrid mumbles, her fingers pinched white where she holds them tight over her mouth.

"Hey, now, it's fine," Percy says. "It's just proof me own mam was right all these years. 'You'll fall off that chair one day, Perce, and crack your head right open.'" He laughs a little when he says it.

It does absolutely nothing to make Sigrid feel better.

"Uh, right then. Your da send you to tell me something?" Percy asks.

Sigrid shakes her head. "No. I—" She pauses, takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders to better look him in the eye. "I want to learn how to read. Can you teach me?"

"Well, now," Percy says, looking a little dumbfounded. "Well, now," he repeats, and then shakes his head. "Hasn't your da taught you?"

"Da is busy," Sigrid says, and offers no further information.

"Busy, yes. But you're his daughter; have you asked him?"

Sigrid looks at him mullishly and repeats. "Da is _busy_. I want to learn how to read. I know you can, you wouldn't work at one of the gates if you didn't. I'll work hard and I won't complain."

"Spirits preserve me," Percy mutters, dragging a hand across his face. He is silent as he pulls off his hat and scrubs at his hair, looking at everything in the gatehouse except for her. "Lass," he finally says, "I think you should talk to your da. He can help you."

The sharp sting of disappointment settles under her skin, but Sigrid won't let _him_ see it. "Fine," she says, and she's a little amazed at how calm she sounds. "I'll just go to the next person on my list and ask them." Sigrid is lying. She doesn't have a list. She knows maybe thirty people in all of Laketown, and most of them she dislikes.

That doesn't mean she's giving up. She'll just have to spend more time away from her siblings, exploring Laketown and listening for accents like hers.

"What list?" Percy asks, and he sounds a little worried.

"Da is busy," Sigrid says once again. "I want to learn how to read. I am going to find someone to teach me." Sigrid has a flash of awful brilliance. "Maybe the Master will teach me, if I agree to work in his household." She feels sick as she says it, slimy and unclean, but it does exactly what she wanted it to.

"No," Percy says, and his voice is sharp and rough. Sigrid isn't startled - she had expected it. "No," he says again, and wipes a sweaty palm against his trousers. "Look, I can't teach you. But you go talk to Ida. You can find her at the market. She sells wool. Ask her to teach you."

Sigrid nods stiffly and turns toward the door.

"I still think you should talk to your father," Percy adds.

"Thank you for your advice," Sigrid says, coldly polite, and keeps moving.

**◊◊◊**

Sigrid's da returns the next day, but he doesn't speak to her of reading at all. He returns her embrace when she offers it but moves to check on Tilda as he always does. When Bain tugs on his jacket, he bends down to embrace him as well.

He passes a pouch of coins to Cala and thanks her for taking care of Tilda. Cala nods stiffly before telling him that she'll be back in a few hours. She picks up little Jyle and leaves for her own house.

Everything is as it has been, which Sigrid finds odd.

Percy must have decided not to tell her father about her little excursion.

Whether that is good or bad, she cannot tell.

**◊◊◊**

The market is only open once a week.

Her da is still at home, so Sigrid hunts around the house for any spare coin. She needs a reason to go to the market. Masking her search as cleaning, she manages to find a few loose coppers that had dropped behind a desk and been forgotten.

On the morning of the day of the market, Sigrid tells Bain a story while she makes food to break their fast. Her work is made a little more difficult as Tilda refuses to be put down, but it is easier to keep Tilda perched on her hip than it is to listen to her screaming. Sigrid makes do.

To her surprise, Tilda looks interested when she cooks a bit of smelly lye fish for herself. It's cheap, filling and difficult to spoil, which is what matters to Sigrid. But it is also soft enough for a baby to try.

Smiling a little, Sigrid blows on a piece until she is sure it is cool. She lifts her fork to Tilda's mouth and waits for her to make a decision. Tilda squirms a little bit but leans forward, clamping her teeth down on the fork.

Bain makes a face. "I can't believe you're giving that to her."

"There's nothing wrong with lye fish," Sigrid chides. "I like it."

"It tastes gross," Bain says, looking at Tilda in horrified awe.

Tilda finally lets go of the fork and pulls back. A little bit of the fish spills down her chin, but she eats most of it. "Sig," she says, and reaches a hand towards Sigrid's food.

"You like that, hmn?" Sigrid forks a quick bite for herself and then another for Tilda. "Don't stick your tongue out," she tells Bain as she feeds Tilda another bite. "If she likes it I don't want you to make her dislike it."

Bain grumbles but goes back to his own food. Tilda doesn't eat more than four bites of lye fish, but given that she'd already nursed that morning, Sigrid thinks it's acceptable to be a little excited. This is the first time Tilda has expressed an interest in solid foods.

She's still smiling widely when their da rises from bed. He looks at her a little oddly, glancing between her and Cala where she sits in front of the hearth knitting, but Sigrid pays it no mind.

"Here," Sigrid says, passing Tilda to their da when he sits. "She's been a little fussy about being put down today, and I need to go to the market."

"What for?" her da asks a little bemusedly.

"I need to pick up some thread." It's not even a lie. Sigrid has been hemming some of her mother's clothes for her to wear and she's run out of thread. She would pick threads from one of her worn shifts and use them to sew, but this makes a convenient excuse.

"Oh."

Sigrid looks back at her father, unable to really place his tone of voice. He sounds a little surprised and a little sad, but in a way she's never heard before.

"I should be back in a few hours," Sigrid says, and pats her father on the arm when he moves to stand. "You should eat breakfast before it goes cold." She kisses Tilda on the forehead and gives Bain a hug. "Be good."

"Yes, Sigrid," Bain grumbles, folding his arms on the table and looking surly.

There's nothing else for Sigrid to do but leave, so she does. The morning air is crisp and cold; any lingering bits of sleepiness are quickly chased away.

The market is already up and running when she arrives, which Sigrid had expected. She had not gotten as early of a start as she would have liked. Still, she makes her way over to the only woman selling large baskets of unspun wool.

There is another woman looking through the baskets, so Sigrid pretends to look too. She's careful not to touch the wool, since she's sure her few coins could not pay for any of it. The other woman eventually makes her decision and pays, which leaves Sigrid alone to ask her question.

"Are you Ida?" Sigrid decides to ask first.

She raises an eyebrow. "I am. And you are Sigrid, daughter of Frida."

"That was my mam's name," Sigrid blurts out in surprise. She claps her hands over her mouth just as fast. It's just that - whenever she is introduced, she is Sigrid, daughter of _Bard_ , not Sigrid, daughter of _Frida_.

Ida laughs. It's an old lady's laugh, croaky and full. A few other shoppers turn to look at them, but they go back to their business soon enough.

"Yes, it is your mam's name," Ida says, and she smiles wide enough that Sigrid can see where she's missing a tooth. "What do you want with me, little Sigrid?"

It chafes a bit, that Ida calls her little, but Sigrid doesn't want her to think her a child so she doesn't address it. "I want to learn how to read," she says. "Will you teach me?"

Ida looks surprised. "Hasn't Bard taught you?"

Not this again, Sigrid thinks. "Da is _busy_." It comes out a little sharper than she means it to.

Ida looks at her for a long while before her face wrinkles in understanding. "Ever the people's champion, your father," she says softly, but it sounds a little bitter. "All right. You want to learn how to read. What about writing?"

Sigrid perks up in surprise before reality crashes back down on her. "Ink and paper are expensive," she recites dully.

Ida clicks her tongue. "That's not what I asked. Do you want to learn how to write?"

"Of course I do," Sigrid snaps. "But it's too expensive to practice."

Ida hums thoughtfully. "I will teach you to read and write," she says, ignoring Sigrid's outburst. "But you will have to come to my house for at least an hour every day."

Sigrid doesn't like the idea of leaving her brother and sister alone, but she also never thought that learning to read was going to be _easy_. "When and where?"

"That will depend on you," Ida says, leaning forward to poke at the air before her. "I think I will come by tomorrow and ask your da if I can borrow you to spin some of my wool. Can you sew at all?"

"A little," Sigrid says, and then in the spirit of honesty adds, "Not as good as my mam could. I'm still learning."

"Then we'll work on that, too. I will see you tomorrow, little Sigrid." She makes a shooing motion with her hand, and Sigrid leaves quickly, not wanting her to change her mind.

**◊◊◊**

Ida does everything she says she would and more.

Sigrid remembers more from her mam's lessons once prompted, and Ida is quick to teach her what she had forgotten before moving on. There are plenty of shipping orders Sigrid can practice her reading on, and Ida shows her how to write with the burnt remains of wood from a specially made fire. It's a messy process, but Sigrid learns. Her lines start to grow more confident, her letters more precise.

Ida also shows Sigrid how to spin and felt wool, on top of improving her shoddy sewing skills. Sigrid isn't allowed to take the spun wool home, but Ida pays her for her work when it meets her standards. Sigrid saves her money to buy a thick bolt of cloth and makes a warm set of long shirts for herself and her siblings.

Leaving Bain and Tilda at home never gets easier, though.

When Tilda turns three, her da finally gets rid of Cala. It's both a longer and shorter time than Sigrid had expected - Tilda has been eating lye fish and mashed up vegetables for a few months now, but she had almost expected da to fall for Cala's insistence that Tilda still needed a mother's milk. Her da loves Tilda best, after all.

But her da's eyes turn dark at Cala's urging, and he cuts her off with a sharp slice of his hand. Sigrid can't hear what he says to her, but it leaves her pale and her gaze keeps darting over to where Sigrid stands, holding Tilda and keeping an arm around Bain's shoulders.

Later that night, her da asks Sigrid to sit on the bench in front of the hearth. She has already put Tilda and Bain to bed so she has no reason to refuse, but she sits uneasily.

"Yes, da?" she prompts, when he seems to lose his words.

"Sigrid—" he starts, and then slowly lowers himself to his knees in front of her. "Sigrid, I am so sorry."

Sigrid doesn't understand.

"I didn't know," he continues, and the expression on his face is contrite. "The wet nurses - Cala, all of them - they were supposed to take care of _you_ , too. To make your meals and tuck you in at night. To take care of Bain and Tilda."

"But I've been taking care of Bain and Tilda," Sigrid says automatically.

Her da looks pained. "I know now, darlin'. But you were only seven. Would you want Bain to take care of Tilda on his own?"

"Bain's not seven yet, da," Sigrid corrects him. "It's two more months 'til Nárië."

"Would you want Bain to take care of Tilda by himself in two months?" Her da looks oddly intent.

Sigrid gives the matter some real thought, then slowly shakes her head no. She doesn't _want_ to leave Bain and Tilda alone. But she has done it, and will again. Unless she can convince Ida to let her bring them with her. It wasn't an option when Cala was living at their house, but it might be one now.

"You shouldn't have had to take care of your brother and sister," her da says, bringing Sigrid's attention back to him. "But I'm very grateful you did. Thank you." And then her da enfolds her in his arms.

It's warm.

That's a silly thing to think, but all Sigrid knows is that she's _warm_. Her da is holding her like he hasn't done in years, close enough that she can rest her chin on his shoulder and smell the the earthy scent of his skin.

It takes her a second, but Sigrid fists her hands in her da's clothes and clings to him. She's missed this.

"Such a good older sister," her da murmurs into her hair, and it's been a long time since she's heard that, too. "I love you, Sigrid."

"I love you, da," Sigrid whispers back.


End file.
